Chamber hands out new awards

Nelson Andrews, Jack Bovender among honorees

Email | Print By Richard Lawson

The Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce handed out a new set of awards for its member and volunteers to further entrench the brand promise created a year ago.

“Belong, Engage, Lead, Prosper” each made up a category for the Spirit of the Chamber Awards.

Michelle Boucher, a team leader at Louisiana-Pacific, won the Belong category for her role as a team leader in the 2008 Membership Challenge team.

Ron Samuels, the new chamber chairman and Avenue Bank co-founder, won in the Engage category for his work on the Music City Center Coalition and Our Team Nashville, the group that advocated to keep the Predators here.

Nelson Andrews, a principal in Brookside Properties and a longtime real estate investor, won in the Lead category for his role as chairman of the chamber’s public education advocacy committee.

And Jack Bovender, who this week announced he will soon retire as CEO of HCA, won in the Prosper category for his role in leading the chamber’s economic development arm, Partnership 2010.

The late Bobby Mathews received the Spirit of the Region Award posthumously because of long involvement with the chamber and his role in helping transform the Nashville skyline.

Greg Coleman, a broker with Colliers Turley Martin Tucker, took home the first award for Stellar Achiever because of his role in chairing the committee on member relations and actually retaining members for the chairman, which means continued revenue.

Before wearing themselves out patting everyone on the back, chamber leaders ran through the typical cheerleading, with Ralph Schulz, the chamber’s president and chief executive, getting the meeting attendees to stand and recite the mantra “Belong, Engage, Lead, Prosper.”

The meeting opening with a solo Chinese drum beating act to warm up the crowd for more drum beating. It's not clear whether the dance was a Northern style or Southern style performance. The former is more for entertainment while the latter is performed to bringing luck and fortune.